


12 Days of Sanvers & Supercorp Christmas (Year Four)

by queercapwriting (queergirlwriting)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sanvers Christmas, Supercorp Christmas, There will be fluff, Whatever y'all want, but also there will probably be angst and hurt/comfort because that's just where i'm at, duh - Freeform, i am at your service, someone will probably get snowed in at some point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21793180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queergirlwriting/pseuds/queercapwriting
Summary: How are we at year four? Welp, another year of Supercorp and Sanvers holigay shenanigans.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 29
Kudos: 153





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> mostly-hope asked:
> 
> Holiday prompt definitely not related to my life: young (college?) Supercorp spending holidays apart because their families live in different places. And acting completely happy about it is hard but kind of necessary.

She didn’t want to go back to Midvale. The only reason it - this whole damn planet - had ever felt like home was because of Alex.

But now? Now, it felt more like a trap.

Not that she didn’t want to be with Alex for the holidays, and even Eliza. Though it was harder, being around Eliza now, since Alex had opened up about the ways Eliza had made her feel so much less than, so much less valued. So much less important as a daughter, as a sister, as a person. Never enough.

Kara and Eliza had always had a beautiful relationship themselves, and maybe it was the desperation to keep that - she had just lost her entire planet, including her mother, after all, when she first got to Earth - that had hidden from her how much pain Alex had been.

But they were older, now, and Alex’s drinking was nothing if not a screaming indication to Kara that things hadn’t been as great as Alex’s practiced smile always broadcasted.

And Kara wasn’t exactly relishing the idea of facing the now inevitable tension between her Earth mom and her eldest this holiday… but it was more than that.

It was a lot more than that. 

She missed Lena Luthor.

Lena, who was one of the only people, aside from Alex, who made her feel like she belonged on this planet where the gravity was all wrong and the sun not quite right and she couldn’t ever give hugs the way she wanted to, not really, not unless it was J’onn or Clark.

But Lena had to go back to her own home - something Kara knew she very much wasn’t looking forward to, either. Very much wasn’t willing to call home.

And for much, much worse reasons that she didn’t want to be in Midvale.

In Midvale, there would be presents and cocoa and praise (at least, for Kara) and there would be early mornings watching Alex surf, waiting on the shore with her with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate. One of her favorite Danvers sisters traditions.

At least she had that. Lena had… none of that. 

“Kara, you’re on your phone a lot more than you usually are,” Eliza commented, and it was off-hand but it was also something like being chastised. Alex snorted, because she knew all about that. She also knew, apparently, how to text her own girlfriend when Eliza couldn’t see.

Apparently, Kara had yet to perfect that skill.

“Just missing Lena,” she tried for emotional honesty where Alex usually said something like “just keeping up with work.”

Eliza frowned and sat next to Kara on the couch. “I know you do, sweetie. But she’s with her own family, and you get to spend these few days with yours. You’ll see her so soon. For now, chin up, okay? We’re together, and we should celebrate that!”

Kara forced a smile from her lips into her eyes. “Yeah,” she said, as Alex grimaced behind her. “Yeah, we should. So,” she cleared her throat, finding it in her to infuse fake happiness into her body language, even though she’d been in the middle of writing a text to Lena about how wonderful she was, how she could do this, how everything Lilian was telling her was wrong and she just couldn’t see how amazing she was… “So, what cookies are we baking next?”

Every time Eliza left the room, Kara dug into her phone, dough-caked fingers be damned, typing quick messages to Lena, sending her puppy emojis when she had time for nothing else.

She smiled at the nerdy holiday music that seemed to give Eliza so much joy, and even though she was genuinely happy to see Eliza happy, to be spending time with her, all she could think of was wishing her girlfriend’s hand was in hers.

Because her girlfriend was her family, no matter what parents and social conventions and the unspoken rules about who goes where for holidays said.

“Kara,” Alex whispered one night as Kara was walking out of the bathroom – where she’d spent many more precious minutes than she’d needed, texting Lena pictures of her smile, her “missing you” pout, and blushing and chuckling at the photos Lena sent back from her own sanctuary – “get in here.”

“What?” she jumped, adjusting her glasses guiltily. 

“Just.. just come in here,” Alex waved her into their shared bedroom. “Tell Lena to go somewhere she can be alone for a few minutes, and when she is, press that button, okay?” 

Alex kissed her little sister on the forehead, and without further explanation, set off down the stairs to keep Eliza distracted from where Kara was and why she wasn’t spending more time with the family.

Bewildered, Kara did as she was told. She texted Lena, waited the ten minutes it took Lena to tell her she’d been able to extract herself from family – guiltily listening to Alex’s exaggerated laughter downstairs that Kara knew was a front for her sake – and then, pressed the button Alex told her to.

A full-color hologram of Lena buzzed into appearance, just like that, in Kara’s room. Lena’s eyes flew wide – it was clear that she’d been crying, or at least trying not to, but now, her smile was shocked but bright, looking around Kara’s room like it was a miracle, at Kara’s face like it was a miracle.

“How?” she asked, her eyes soaking in everything.

“Alex,” Kara wiped a tear from her own eye, because this was so much better than FaceTime.

“Of course, Alex,” Lena laughed lightly. “I’m impressed, though I can’t say I hadn’t thought of doing this myself. I’m just not allowed access to any of the family’s lab equipment when I’m… but… hi,” she said, suddenly breathless.

Kara didn’t know how many minutes they spent just whispering high to each other, just watching each other’s faces and bodies and telling each other that they’d be together again soon, that they’d be in each other’s thoughts the entire time, and they were sleeping under the same move, wrapped in the same blanket of sky, and that had to count for something, didn’t it?

“I love you,” Kara whispered when Eliza started calling for her to come back downstairs to spend time with the family. 

“I love you too,” Lena smiled, and the smile stayed even as the projection faded.

And this time, when Kara headed back downstairs, tears somewhat dry, her smile was able to be genuine.

She launched herself into Alex’s arms and didn’t let go for a long, long time. And that felt just right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> Lena and Supergirl/Kara haven’t been talking for ages. Come Christmas time, Lena is drinking and angsty thinking about how Kara is probably having a great Christmas without her but Supergirl crashes through her window injured and doesn’t make eye contact cause she feels bad and it’s revealed that Kara has been spending the entire time since their fight, focused on Supergirl stuff while everyone else was busy and left her to deal with it on her own (I hope you meant to the box rn. Thank you!)

She’s not quite drunk, but she’s definitely not sober.

Well, if she were anyone else, she’d probably be extremely drunk. But Lena has an Alex Danvers-level ability to hold her liquor - which means they should both, really, be in treatment together, but that’s for next year, not tonight, Lena tells herself - so she takes another pull on the bottle of whiskey, because she’s long since given up on pouring it into her glass.

What’s the point, really? It’s all going to the same place. It’s all doing the same thing to her head.

Helping her forget. 

Well, not really. It’s only making her remember, truth be told. But it’s different, somehow, when it’s this hazy. Not better, but… but at least she has an excuse, now, to not work. To wallow, just a little, in her own agony.

Because it is agony.

Again.

Just when she’d thought she’d found a family. Just when she thought she’d found…

Well, she’d made the transition from wine to whiskey fairly quickly.

Because it’s Christmas Eve and everything hurts, and there is literally nothing she can latch her mind on that doesn’t remind her of Kara.

That doesn’t remind her of everything she thought she had, everything she was stupid enough to believe - for once - that she wouldn’t lose.

Of course she lost it. She was a Luthor, after all.

But no, she’s been realizing recently. It’s not because she’s a Luthor. She’s been hiding behind her last name, her damn family’s damn legacy, for too long now. Because, she’s realizing as a rare snow starts falling in National City - it would be beautiful, wouldn’t it, if she had someone to share it with, if she weren’t completely and utterly alone with every single way she’d ever hated herself - it’s not her family name. 

It’s her. It’s her fault. The reason everyone keeps lying to her. The reason everyone keeps leaving her. The reason she’s alone.

And Kara? 

Lena laughs out loud to herself, and it’s a sound that’s almost gruff, that’s definitely callous, certainly more than a little unsteady.

Kara’s probably having a wonderful time, with the family she’s built for herself. The family she said Lena could be a part of, and then…

She thinks it’s her own whiskey-hazed mind at first. The sound of a crash in her bedroom. 

But then there’s an ‘ow,’ and she knows that voice. She knows it like she knows her own voice, and she hates that it registers so quickly, so easily, in her mind, hates the way it cuts right through the whiskey and straight into all her greatest fears and harshest hopes.

Kara. Well, Supergirl.

Supergirl.

She doesn’t stumble - she’d like to think she doesn’t stumble - as she rises and the alcohol feels like it’s all rushing to her head, but she continues, continues, because that was definitely the sound of glass breaking, and as many times as Supergirl - Kara, Supergirl, Kara, it doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters anymore - flew onto her balcony or in through her window, she’d never, ever broken anything…

There’s a cut on her cheek and there’s a rip in those pants that Lena had figured were as indestructible as the woman herself, revealing a deep gash.

Kara - Supergirl, whatever - winces, grabbing at her leg, and Lena thinks she hears her mutter an apology, over and over and over again.

But if Lena hears “I’m sorry” from those lips one more time, the window won’t be the only thing broken in her bedroom.

She ignores the Kryptonian’s apologies and she just slips on a pair of sandals - she’ll worry about cleaning up the glass later, but she’d rather avoid stepping on any right now - and she surprises herself by how steady her hands are as she steps over Kara into her en suite bathroom.

She surprises herself by how sobering confronting the object of your heartbreak can be. Not to mention the sight of all that blood.

But Lena isn’t just a failure. She’s a failure who’s also a genius, and who used to think she was one of Kara’s best friends. One of Supergirl’s closest allies, friends. 

Used to.

Everything good used to be.

Everything now just hurts.

But there is some good about what used to be, because she still has coagulants she and Alex - another heartbreak, another loss, another reason she has nothing, not anymore - had created to work specifically on Kryptonians. On Kara. Well, Supergirl.

Well, Kara.

Lena’s head spins, and it’s not from the alcohol. Or at least, she doesn’t think it is.

She gathers what she needs and she pats the side of her bed roughly. If she kneels next to Kara, she’ll be kneeling in glass.

It would probably feel better than how she feels now, but it would make things messier.

And she doesn’t have the capacity to deal with messier, not now. Perhaps not ever again.

Kara obediently scrambles up onto her mattress, still not looking at Lena, still murmuring apologies.

Lena continues to ignore the apologies.

She treats her cheek first, her fingers trembling at how hot Kara’s skin is. The cut on her cheek is easy.

Her leg is a different story, which is why she gives herself more time to work on it.

“I’d have thought you’d be celebrating the holiday with your family,” she says eventually, as Kara sits there, still with her head bowed away from Lena, still saying how sorry she is, how she had nowhere else to go and it won’t happen again and and and.

“I haven’t seen much of any of them lately,” Kara finally says, finally sneaks a glance at Lena. But Lena was ready for it, and when their eyes meet, her heart both wants to fly and to shrivel up and never peak over its walls again.

She wonders about the line between love and hate, and she wonders if love is just the braver choice.

She wonders how brave she really is.

“And why is that?” she asks, her voice distant, but her mind thinking that maybe she’s braver than she’d realized.

“I hurt you,” Supergirl-Kara-the-woman-who-was-her-best-friend-and-she’d-been-wildly-in-love-with murmurs.

Lena thinks the alcohol might be making her slower, regardless of how sobering stitching up a Kryptonian wound is.

“And what does that have to do with your holiday celebrations?”

Kara sneaks another glance at her face, and Lena feels it but deliberately avoids it, this time, pretending her coagulating agent isn’t doing all the work on its own and needs tending.

“I haven’t really taken off this damn suit since our… since…”

“Us,” Lena supplies, and she doesn’t know if she’s being generous or spiteful.

Again, that fine line.

“Yes,” Kara whispers, and this time, it’s Lena who looks up at her. Because her voice is broken, but not nearly as broken as her face, her eyes.

“So you haven’t been spending much time living a human life,” Lena says, and she doesn’t want to feel compassion, but she does.

She wonders if that’s weakness or strength.

“How can I? At least as Supergirl, I can save people. As Kara, I’m just -”

“A flawed human who makes mistakes like the rest of us,” Lena says, somewhere between harsh and forgiving. “But apparently you make mistakes as Supergirl too,” she comments, gesturing at the leg she’s tending.

“I was careless. But everyone’s safe,” Kara looks down again.

A long silence rises between them. Lena knows that Kara knows that her wound has been treated, now, and there’s technically no more reason for her to stay.

But they sit in that silence together, anyway, a cold wind howling in from the shattered window.

Shattered is an excellent word, Lena reflects.

And maybe it’s the liquor, but she finds she’s not even chilled by it.

“I know I have no right to miss you, but I do. Every moment,” Kara fills the silence after a long while. “I didn’t want… it doesn’t feel right to celebrate anything without you. I don’t want to celebrate anything without you with me. And you’re alone, now, and drinking by yourself and -”

“Is that really any different than you flying around the city alone, looking for trouble?”

Kara sighs, and Lena wonders if she’ll fly right back out the window the same way she came in.

Shattering.

“Come home with me,” Kara whispers. “You shouldn’t be alone. And I… I don’t want to be without you. I messed up. Big time. And I maybe have no right to ask for anything from you. Ever again. But I want to. I want you. Back. I love you.”

She says it simply and she says it with the most broken and earnest look in her eyes that Lena has ever seen.

And she can’t tell, not really, if she means she loves her like a friend or like she’s in love, but she thinks maybe it’s both.

And it’s the first time she’s said it, and it’s…

It’s nothing, and it’s everything.

A fine line, between love and hate.

And if love is the braver choice, maybe the braver choice, too, is believing that Kara’s words are everything, not nothing.

“So the holidays together, then,” Lena states, because she’s still too hurt to acknowledge Kara’s love, to say it back to her, but an opening.

An opening.

Maybe an opening is enough.

If Kara’s spark of a smile is any indication, it is.

And Lena can’t help it - her lips tug up into a small smile, too.

Kara Danvers - Supergirl - both - always did have an infectious smile.

“I’m afraid I’ve already had quite too many Christmas spirits alone,” Lena blurts, but Kara just puts a steadying hand on hers, and it’s hell and it’s heaven and it’s everything she’s ever wanted.

“We’ll make sure you only get the non-alcoholic eggnog, then,” Kara says, and Lena grimaces another smile.

It’s not fixed. But maybe, now, it could be.

And maybe, now, she doesn’t have to believe she’ll be alone forever. Because maybe choosing the braver option can bring her more happiness than heartbreak, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> So potential prompt for the holiday series: just a cheesy hallmarky movie fic. Girl meets girl for some reason they're on opposite sides of a business they have to work together to make Christmas or Chanuka festivities a reality and they end up falling in love. But this time, ITS FINALLY GAY! but that's also a lot so also totally cool if it's disregarded...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters today because yesterday was hell. but today is a little more stable. so, all caught up and ready for day four tomorrow. <3

“I don’t understand,” Maggie rolled her eyes – for what felt like the four hundredth time – at her supervisor Professor M’orzz. “They’re astrophysics. We’re xenobio. Why on Earth - no pun intended, I guess - would we work with them on a stupid holiday party?”

Professor M’orzz sighed, also for what felt like the four hundredth time. “Because, Maggie, the show of unity will be good for the overall science department. Funding and all that. And anyway, it’s as you said: astrophysics and xenobiology. You realize that both departments are dismissed by the entire rest of the department as speculative sciences, right? That should give us some kind of bond, you’d think, no?”

Maggie sighed, knowing when she was caught in a truth. “Yeah. I know. Just. They’re so into… math.”

Professor M’orzz smiled at that. “Well I’m sure you and their representative will have a lot to learn from each other while you plan the department’s holiday party then.”

“And why me, again?”

“You know why. The student doing the most prestigious work in our program, being the face of our holiday party slash fundraiser? We need the money to continue our research, donors love to give around the holidays, and you know it.”

Maggie sighed, heavy and deep and with a slight exaggeration that she knew would aggravate anyone else, but that Professor M’orzz would have affection for.

“Fine. Who am I collaborating with, then?”

She didn’t know that the person she was collaborating with was right down the hall in the astrophysics lab, having the same conversation with their professor. 

“Oh come on, J’onn,” they said, because Alex Danvers was far past formalities. “It’s a cheap ploy for money, and -”

“A cheap ploy for money that will keep this department running, Alex,” J’onn said. “It’ll help pay for that accelerator I know you and Mr. Allen were chatting about earlier this week.”

Alex glared, knowing when they were defeated. “Fine. I’ll meet up with this Sawyer woman then.”

“Good,” J’onn smiled, as Alex set off toward the xenobio program office.

They met each other in the hallway and knew each other instantly, by reputation and, somehow, by instinct.

“Danvers,” Maggie greeted with a slight glare and head tilt.

“Sawyer,” Alex clasped their hands behind their back as though to take shaking hands off the table completely.

“So we’ve got to work together on this stupid party,” Maggie said.

“At least we can agree it’s stupid,” Alex smirked.

“Might be stupid, but I’ve got some ideas.”

“Yeah, xenobio’s all about ideas with no observational data for follow-through,” Alex murmured, forgetting everything J’onn had tried to teach them about diplomacy.

“Well,” Maggie nearly stood on tiptoes to look Alex in the eye, but seemed to think better of it, “getting money for both of our departments with this damn holiday party is well within my no-observational-data’s jurisdiction,” Maggie said, and she had the audacity to smirk along with that infuriatingly sexy - wait, no, just infuriating, right? - little head tilt.

“Your jurisdiction ends where I say it does,” Alex returned, knowing even as they spoke the words that they were being way over the top. But Maggie seemed to like over the top, because her smirk only deepened.

“My lab. Seven pm. We’ll do some planning then, okay?”

Alex blinked, and Maggie seemed to take that as ascent as she turned on her heel. “See you around, Danvers.”

So Alex, flummoxed, had no choice but to head to the xenobio lab at seven that night.

If they were honest, they’d always been enamored of the subject. They were considering doing further graduate work in both astrophysics and xenobio – the fields were so interlinked that the rivalry made absolutely no sense. But, alas, competition like that had a momentum of its own, and who was Alex to mess with an unstoppable force?

Except Maggie Sawyer seemed to be an immovable object of some kind.

Because by the time Alex showed up, Maggie had an entire whiteboard full of ideas for this stupid holiday party they were supposed to throw, complete with scribbles in the margins about the ways that tardigrades’ capacity for coming back to life after extreme desiccation could be used to help fuel crop growth in arid regions, and tiny, hastily-scrawled notes about how bacteria that survived thermal heat vents in deep oceans could be useful for understanding the origins of… well, of everything. 

It was like she’d been party planning, all Chanukah this and Christmas that, with a strong dose of fundraising everywhere, and then gotten so sidetracked by her own genius that she had to stop and scribble out her ideas before they leaked away, elusive and never to return…

Alex did that kind of thing, constantly, in their own notebooks, on their own whiteboards…

So they walked past Maggie, without so much as a greeting, to squint – not at her holiday party notes – but at her scientific ideas.

Maggie didn’t move, but rather watched Alex quietly, as they stared at her ideas, looking for all the world like Alex was scrutinizing her naked body – because really, they might as well have been.

“You know,” Alex said into the silence after several long, long moments, “if I’m understanding your horrible handwriting correctly –”

“Well this is starting off great –”

“Then if we exchanged some of our data, I think you could help me understand some of what might happen on rogue planets and I might be able to help you engineer some solves on your desiccation-scaling problem.”

Alex finally turned to look at their forced colleague, and Maggie was tilting her head, staring between the whiteboard and Alex. “We would do better sharing data than hating each other, wouldn’t we?”

“That’s what J’onn is always saying.”

“Professor M’orzz, too.”

Alex took a deep sigh, and Maggie gave that infuriating smirk again. “Well, maybe this holiday party’s a start. Planning now, the fun stuff later?” 

There was a sparkle in Maggie’s eye, Alex thought, when she referenced fun stuff, and for a moment – just a moment – Alex wondered whether she meant fun science or fun sex. 

Or both.

Or maybe it was all just in Alex’s head.

They really needed to get out of the lab more.

“Come on,” Maggie smirked again, and yep, Alex definitely needed to get out of the lab more, because they definitely should not be finding this xenobio woman attractive. Maggie reached under a desk to pull out to utterly ridiculous-looking hats. 

One was a tall green pointy thing with elf ears on the sides; the other was a floppy red Santa hat. “If we’re gonna plan this damn thing, we might as well get in the spirit. Come on.” Maggie held both hats out to Alex, bobbing her hands up and down to indicate that Alex should pick one.

“Absolutely not,” they crossed their arms over their chest.

“Oh come on. If we have to do this, we should do it right.”

“I’m Jewish,” Alex protested as a last resort, and Maggie tilted her head deeper for a moment before diving back under her desk. 

“A beanie, then. Simple, but wintery. And I’ll be an elf.”

She tugged the elf hat deep over her head, so the fake ears covered her own. Alex couldn’t help but snort and accept the blue beanie Maggie held out.

“Okay. So. Are we going to plan the biggest, most money-making and fun-having holiday party of all time, or what?” Maggie asked.

“If you’re gonna go, go hard,” Alex muttered, a smile creeping onto their face. Because Maggie was mocking the whole thing, even with her enthusiasm, and it was so Alex’s style that they couldn’t help but admire her.

Plus, all those scribbles in the margins…

They stayed in the lab well past midnight, sidetracking every hour or so to get into broader discussions about their fields, their passions, the things they most wanted to discover, the ways they both wanted to use their studies to change the world, the solar system, the galaxy.

Somewhere in between, they also divvied up who would be responsible for venue, food, invites, decorations, music, and the best ways to actually get a solid mix of grad students, professors, and rich alumni in the room.

By the time they agreed to call it a night and head home, neither of them quite thought the holiday party was such a stupid idea after all.

They met a handful more times in between. More logistics and more details. But – not that either of them would admit it – more often than not, their meetings became excuses to talk science, to talk to universe.

To talk about Maggie’s father and Alex’s mother, Maggie’s hometown and Alex’s surfing.

To talk about anything and everything under the sun, under the ocean, and above Earth’s sky.

Neither of them noticed, or would admit it.

Until the night of the holiday party neither of them wanted to plan.

Alex wore an elegantly green dress, backless and just this side of tight.

Maggie wore a red suit, white shirt, red tie, slim cut and just this side of swoon-worthy.

They stopped when they saw each other, because usually they were in sweats and glasses and yesterday’s makeup, pen stains on their hands and goggles on top of their heads.

They stopped when they saw each other, because suddenly, all their conversations, all those excuses for meetings… clicked.

“You look beautiful, Sawyer,” Alex breathed, running a hand through the buzzed side of their hair self-consciously.

“And you look handsome, Danvers,” Maggie smirked, but this time it was warm, not sarcastic, and Alex wondered when that transition had happened.

“This uh…” Alex gestured around the room, at the party still being set up around them. “We did good.”

“We did,” Maggie grinned, even as her eyes were glued to Alex’s body.

“Still my jurisdiction, though,” Alex murmured as the two stepped closer to each other. Something about gravitational forces between unstoppable forces and immovable objects.

“Not a chance,” Maggie shook her head as they entered each other’s space, no need for words when they’d both already said so much with their planning, their late nights, their bodies, with their dreams and their scribblings in the margins.

“Merry Christmas, Maggie.”

“Happy Chanukah, Alex.”

They didn’t need any mistletoe to tell them to kiss.

Professor M’orzz and J’onn fist-bumped behind them, because they’d definitely had holiday hopes for the two all along.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas at Hogwarts, Supergirl-style

She waited patiently at the top of the spiral staircase that led to Ravenclaw Tower. 

Kara had proven in their second year that she could easily bypass the password to the questions posed for entry to the Tower, but promptly decided it wasn’t the best idea when she’d walked in on Winn Schott having a dance party by himself in the common room at 3am. 

So she waited, because if Lena said she’d meet her downstairs at midnight, then Lena would meet her downstairs at midnight. And sure enough, as soon as the clock struck a new day, the door was opening and Lena was slipping outside, her eyes bright with excitement.

“Did you bring it?” Kara asked, even though she already knew the answer.

Lena nodded, biting her lip in excitement. It was all Kara could do not to kiss her then and there, but then, there was nothing stopping her; and the look on Lena’s face gave her all the consent she needed.

So she kissed her like it was midnight and they were prefects out past hours and breaking every rule in the book, and she kissed her like she didn’t care about any of those things at all.

Because, really, she didn’t.

“Okay, so we know what to do?” Lena asked a few minutes later, though she was still gripping Kara’s biceps for support. 

“We do,” Kara grinned, and they set off to the kitchens.

Kara watched Lena’s spellwork with admiration while she was supposed to be keeping a look out. It was hard not to – watch her, that is – because Lena went somewhere different with a wand in one hand and a pre-made potion in the other. Somewhere special, somewhere all her own. Her lips would move but the sound would be soft enough to only reach her own ears, and her eyes would flutter closed like this was the only thing she was born to do – create spells that would help people, bring people joy, improve people’s lives.

“I love you,” Kara whispered when Lena nodded that she was done, out of her trance but her eyes still foggy with her own daze. She said it so softly that she wasn’t sure Lena heard, but it wasn’t like the two of them didn’t know.

“So what now?” she adjusted her glasses and asked.

“Now,” Lena’s eyes glistened, “we create only a little bit of mayhem. You’re sure your sister’s up on the Astronomy Tower?”

“She always is,” Kara smiled affectionately, “but yeah, I checked right before I came to get you. And yes, I put everything in place. She didn’t even notice.”

“Excellent. And now for the mayhem.”

A series of delicious smells wafter out of her wand, as Kara left down on a picnic blanket the massive amount of food she’d snuck from the Great Hall. The two had contemplated just setting off a bunch of fireworks, in honor of the holiday season, but they hadn’t wanted to scare anyone.

Exaggerated food smells – followed by food itself – was a great way to get any House trickling out of their common rooms at 3am.

Sure enough, it only took a few minutes for Kara and Lena – hiding together behind a tapestry – to spot Maggie, grabbing a pastry but otherwise with a furrowed brow and a tilted head. Even as she chomped into the pastry – one of the dozens that Kara and Lena had baked together early that morning before anyone woke – Maggie set off in a completely different direction.

Toward the Astronomy Tower.

“Yes!” Lena whisper-shouted, like she hadn’t been sure her enchantment would work. The one which would create an invisible path toward the tower – invisible to everyone except Maggie, that is.

“You are an amazing witch,” Kara whispered with her lips against Lena’s neck. Lena whimpered happily, and they retreated to the Room of Requirement, knowing that their work here was done.

Maggie’s heart raced as she followed the pulsing green path toward the Astronomy Tower. She wasn’t scared, not exactly, but she had her wand gripped loosely in her hand anyway.

A path only she could see?

Her hand gripped a little tighter as she ascended the stairs.

But when she got to the top, she only saw the eldest Danvers girl. Alex, her first name was.

Everyone knew that, even though she never used it.

Because Alex Danvers was a legend – with a wand, on the Quidditch pitch, rumored to being recruited by the Department of Mysteries itself for her Occlumency gifts, though she was also rumored to be turning those invitations down to become a healer.

But here she was, the legend, kneeling on her cloak, staring through the gigantic telescope that only the most advanced students were able to use. Behind her, spread on a red and green Christmas blanket, was a veritable Christmas feast, complete with mugs of hot cocoa that were still, somehow, steaming in this freezing cold.

Much like she didn’t seem to know she was shivering, though, Alex also didn’t seem to notice the feast behind her. Or the wreaths that had been conjured. Or the mistletoe above the blanket.

Maggie gulped, looking around her. The trail she’d been following ended at Alex’s feet, formed a whispy smile that winked at her, and then vanished.

The food outside her common room. The giggling behind the tapestry. Maggie wasn’t exactly unobservant. 

This had to be the work of Kid Danvers and her girlfriend, Lena. 

She laughed to herself at their ingenuity, but her eyes stayed fixed on Alex, and she gulped. Loudly. Alex didn’t stir, only moving to adjust the telescope slightly, mouth slightly agape.

Maggie tried clearing her throat.

Alex still didn’t seem to notice.

Maggie tried one more time.

“Merry Christmas, Danvers,” she said, not quite a whisper but not quite in her regular voice. She didn’t want to scare the seventh year, but she did sort of want her attention – it was clear what Kid Danvers and Luthor had been trying to do, and Maggie would be damned if she’d let their efforts go to waste.

She had always had eyes for the eldest Danvers girl, after all.

Alex just never seemed to notice anything but her studies and the stars.

And when Maggie spoke, she didn’t jump, not quite. But she did, finally, turn around.

And then she seemed to notice everything at once. Maggie in her pajamas with a hastily-grabbed cloak, the feast behind her, all the wreaths and… and the mistletoe.

“Kara set this up, didn’t she?” Alex deadpanned without preamble, and suddenly Maggie understood – even more than she had before – why the Ministry was trying to recruit her before she even graduated.

“Seems like it. I’m uh –”

“I know who you are,” Alex said, rising from her knees and seeming to realize that she was shivering. But instead of reaching down to get her cloak and toss it around herself, she stepped forward and put it around Maggie. She tried to resist, but Alex was insistent. “Maggie Sawyer, top of our class in Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies and Potions. An A+ Seeker. And you hexed that Lord boy when he made fun of my sister when she was a third year.”

“He had it coming,” Maggie muttered, and Alex stepped back, smiling one of those rare Alex Danvers smiles. 

Her eyes went up and down Maggie’s body, slow and intense, and Maggie almost melted then and there. “You look better in my cloak than I do.”

Maggie’s heart skipped at the comment, but she tried one more time to take it off. “You’re shivering,” she said, but Alex just stepped out of range and shook her head.

“At least I’m not just in my pajamas.” Maggie felt her blush deepen, and Alex went to sit on the blanket Kara had set up.

“Come on. We should at least eat what Kara and Lena set us up for. And knowing Kara’s spell work, the cocoa will still be – ah, yep – super hot.”

She patted the space on the blanket right next to her, and Maggie sat.

Two Santa hats appeared when she did so, and Alex laughed. “Clever witch,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she tugged one of the hats on and passed one to Maggie.

“Do you come up here alone a lot?” Maggie asked, because she’d always imagined Alex as having a lot of friends, even though she never really saw her with anyone but her sister.

Alex turned her face up toward the stars.

“How could I not?”

Her eyes must have caught renewed sight of the mistletoe on their way back down to earth, because Alex chuckled. Maggie wanted to memorize the sound.

“My sister seems to have an agenda with this feast here.” Maggie thought she saw Alex bite the inside of her lip – like she was shy, this legend shy, about someone who was… just Maggie – but she must have imagined it.

Except Alex was sipping at her cocoa and glancing down at Maggie’s lips over the steaming mug.

“What do you think? Of her and Luthor’s scheme?”

“To get us to kiss?” Maggie nearly squeaked, and the mistletoe only seemed to grow in response.

They both giggled a little, this time, and Alex set down her mug, taking Maggie’s hands into her own to warm them.

“Yes,” she said, straightforward with shining eyes, and there was the girl everyone wanted to lead the Ministry into a new age.

“I think it’s an excellently executed plan. Lots of great spellwork, and um –”

“Sawyer,” Alex interrupted, her voice gentle. She blew into Maggie’s hands, her breath mercifully warm, but Maggie’s shiver had nothing to do with the cold.

“Danvers,” she said, hoping she wasn’t squeaking again.

“May I kiss you?” Alex asked, just as Maggie thought she saw a shooting star out of the corner of her eye.

“Yes,” was all she could whisper, and when Alex’s lips met hers, she definitely saw shooting stars, all of them, exploding like Christmas lights behind her eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Supercorp Christmas Wrapping

“I’ll make sure Nia and the boys keep her out of the house long enough for it to work, Little Danvers, don’t worry,” Maggie promised.

“Yeah, while you and I go back to do plenty of things at our own place,” Alex murmured with a smirk. Kara stuck her palms over her ears and squinted her eyes shut, as though she could protect herself from her superhearing that way.

“I don’t need to hear all that, you’re still my big sister,” Kara whined. Alex laughed and kissed the top of her head.

“Fine. Maggie and I are going to go home, turn on It’s A Wonderful Life, and knit stockings and scarves and bake cookies,” Alex smirked.

The pillow Kara threw at Alex caught her right in the face.

Alex threw it right back, and even Kara’s Kryptonian reflexes couldn’t save both her potstickers and her face.

She saved, of course, her potstickers.

“Just um. Do me a favor, Kara,” Alex kissed her cheek once more before getting up and taking Maggie by the hand. “Since we’re doing you a favor by helping keep Lena out of the house.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Kara asked, already dragging her overabundance of holiday gifts for Lena out of the closet along with the rolls of wrapping Maggie had brought over.

“Turn the volume way low on your superhearing, because Maggie and I –”

“Get out!” Kara faux-shouted.

“Love you, Little Danvers,” Maggie said, and though Kara glared at Alex, she winked at Maggie.

“Have fun,” she singsonged, smiling and shaking her head at the combination of kissing and giggling she heard all the way down her hallway.

But then her brow furrowed and her eyes focused as she adjusted her glasses.

She had a lot of wrapping to do.

She hadn’t realized, when she and Lena moved in together, how complicated it would be to find the time or space to hide the rather huge amount of Christmas and Chanukah gifts from her. 

She never wanted Lena to feel like she was keeping secrets – not again, no, they couldn’t go through that again – and despite it all, Kara Danvers was still a terrible liar. About everyday things, anyway.

So she’d taken to carving out space in the far back of her closet, carefully covering each new purchase, each new painting – which she created and dried over at Alex and Maggie’s place – with her hanging clothes.

But now everything was scattered all over the living room – and not just Lena’s gifts, but her presents for the rest of the extended family, too.

And she had no idea how to wrap them in the few hours she could count on Nia and the boys to keep Lena out of the house.

Sure, she could use her superspeed.

But that felt less intimate, like cheating.

So instead, she carefully arranged a combination of scissors, tape, and those fancy gift labels she’d splurged on, all alongside the wrapping Maggie had brought over. 

Some of it was Supergirl wrapping, which had made Kara roll her eyes but also laugh in delight. Of course, Maggie brought her Supergirl wrapping.

Most of her friends, her family, would probably wrap her gifts in that exact paper.

She had friends, a family, on this earth.

She would have thoughtful, kind, beautiful gifts to open.

She wanted to make sure Lena felt that cared for, too.

So she put a “Santa’s Workshop: Knock Before Entering” sign on the door – just in case – blasted her favorite Christmas music, and got to work.

Kara was so wrapped up in her wrapping – literally, she got herself stuck in the paper once when she was trying to determine exactly how much wrapping it would take to properly wrap Iris’s portable, heated foot bath – that even with her superhearing, she didn’t hear the bemused knock on the door.

She didn’t realize how many hours had passed, how it had gone from light to dark outside – because she had all the Christmas lights turned on in the house, cookies in the oven, music blasting – when Lena knocked and knocked and knocked and eventually, stuck her head into the door of her own condo.

The one she shared with Kara.

They were both still in shock, about that. The reality of it. Of living together. Being together. It was still so fresh, and absolutely beautiful.

“Kara?” Lena said, and it was her voice, saying Kara’s name – Kara was always listening for it, its tone, in case Lena was ever in trouble – that made Kara jump and splutter and try to both adjust her glasses and hide the canvas she was wrapping at the same time.

But when Lena’s eyes flew wide – not at the Santa hat Kara had tugged over her ears, but at the painting she was failing to hide – Kara gulped. 

“I’m sorry, Lena, you weren’t supposed to see it until –”

“No, Kara, don’t apologize, it’s… darling, it’s beautiful.”

Lena stepped over the shreds of unused wrapping – Kara used her superspeed to make sure she didn’t step on the wayward scissors by accident – and took the painting, only half-wrapped, into her hands.

It was Kara holding Lena in her arms, bridal-style, but not like the photos that had popped up around the media.

The painting was from Kara’s perspective. Of having Lena in her arms. Her eyes, her arms, seeming to extend beyond the painting and around Kara’s neck, strands of blonde hair and bits of red cape, Kara’s hands, secure around Lena’s body, the only indications of Kara’s presence in the painting.

Except, it was all Kara’s presence, because it was, all of it, how Kara saw Lena.

Lena had never seen herself look so beautiful.

Not vulnerable, being carried like that. Radiating power.

Not helpless. Defiant.

Not frightened. In love.

“It’s how I see you,” Kara tried to explain, adjusting her glasses and watching Lena’s face carefully. But she didn’t need to explain. The painting spoke for itself.

“You made this for me?” Lena asked, her voice broken.

“I’d make anything for you,” Kara said, simply because it was true.

Lena set the painting down beside them, gentle and reverent, so she wouldn’t damage it with the tears that were starting to drip down her face.

“I love you,” she whispered, once, twice, then over and over and over again as her lips found Kara’s and Kara’s hands found her waist and their bodies found their bed and suddenly, Christmas wrapping was the greatest activity Kara could think of.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara gets drunk on Christmas Eve and a skeptical Lena comes to her aid.

Alex was the Danvers sister who drank more than she should. Kara was the one who laughed because Earth alcohol did nothing more to her than orange juice, and cried when she had to take the bottle away from Alex, again.

It had been happening less, since Maggie. But still, it happened. So now, Maggie and Kara tended to tag team making sure that Alex wasn’t drinking herself into oblivion.

But this year? This year, Kara stocked up on that stuff from the bar that usually made her floaty and bubbly. It usually made her floaty and bubbly because she didn’t have that much.

This year, Kara had just this side of way too much.

She wouldn’t open the door for Maggie, and she would barely look at Alex when her sister knelt in front of her and tried to soothe her mind. 

It helped. Having her sister there. But her sister would always be there.

Lena, on the other hand... she’d just been getting used to having Lena, having a sense of always with her. 

And now, just in time for the holidays, she had... nothing.

Lena wouldn’t return her calls, or her texts. She’d even left voicemails, for crying out loud.

And she was crying out loud.

But still, no Lena.

She should have known better, than to get attached. She should have known that she destroyed everything she touched, that Lena would have been better off if she’d kept her distance.

That everyone would be better off, keeping their distance.

But there she’d gone, being selfish again. Loving too much again.

Where had it gotten her?

Drunk on her living room floor, suddenly understanding the appeal of the bottom of the bottle.

She almost screamed when Alex gently took it out of her hands. But Alex was smart, and she positioned her fingers so that if Kara resisted with superstrength, she’d hurt Alex. Badly.

And Kara could never be drunk enough for that.

But she was drunk enough not to register that Maggie was calling someone from just outside in the hallway, that she was apologizing and asking and apologizing again, and then thanking and apologizing some more.

Lena has taken Alex’s place next to Kara, on the floor, within fifteen minutes.

Kara thought, at first, that the alcohol was making her see things. Who knew how it affected Kryptonian biology.

But then Lena, all skeptical eyes and stiff posture, touched her hand.

And Kara would know that touch anywhere.

Lena didn’t say anything, not for a long while. She just studied Kara with a critical eye, and though Kara could practically hear the brilliant gears turning in Lena’s mind, she still had no idea what she was thinking.

Until she blurted the question out loud, because yes, that was what alcohol made you do.

“I’m wondering why you’re drinking alone on Christmas Eve when you have such a big family that loves you and wants you near them,” Lena said, barely keeping the bitterness out of her voice.

“You do, too,” Kara said, and she wondered if she always slurred like that. “And anyway, I don’t have a big family. I mean, I do, you know, an Earth family. But my planet’s gone. My whole planet, Lena. Again. Everyone. Again. It keeps happening. It keeps happening. It keeps -”

And then she was sobbing, hard, and it shouldn’t be Lena’s responsibility to hold her, to comfort her, because she’d shredded her right to go to Lena for any sort of help at all, but there she was anyway, her arms around Kara, suddenly more protective than skeptical, more sad than angry.

“I know,” Lena said, and Kara knew that she didn’t, but she also knew that Lena knew that she didn’t mean it that way. That she just meant she knew what it was like, to sob like this, drunk and the world spinning and every fragment of happiness shattered and burned.

“And I’ve lost you too,” Kara pushed away gently, vaguely surprised that she could stay this gentle, this drunk. “And I can’t explain what I did to you, or how sorry I am, or -”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Lena said, her voice still skeptical but her eyes sure. “Not right now. Right now, you can drink this.” Lena held out a glass of water - Kara had no idea where it came from, but she always had suspected that Lena was capable of miracles.

Because, saving the world as often as that woman had? She was.

The last thing Kara wanted to do was put water anywhere near her lips, but speaking of lips, Lena’s looked perfect, and no, no no no no, she’d lost every right to think things like that.

But she accepted the water and drank obediently, because what else could she do?

Kara wasn’t sure, later, when exactly she fell asleep. But when she realized that she was slumped over in someone’s lap, she assumed it was Alex’s. 

She blinked her weary eyes open, adjusting to the dark almost immediately. But no, she wasn’t in Alex’s lap, because Alex was curled on the floor nearby, hand extended toward Kara’s - like they’d fallen asleep holding hands - with her other arm draped around Maggie’s waist.

Kara had fallen asleep on Lena’s lap, and when her eyes found the clock on the microwave in the kitchen, it read 12:01. 

Christmas.

Lena must have seen it, too - Kara’s heart nearly flopped out of her chest when she blinked upward to see that Lena was awake, to realize belatedly that Lena had been stroking her hair, was still stroking her hair - because she leaned down, then, and kissed Kara’s forehead.

Kara blinked incredulously, but Lena just sighed softly. 

“Merry Christmas, Kara,” she whispered, because maybe all wasn’t forgiven, or forgotten, but maybe there was a path forward. 

She squeezed Lena’s hand - somehow, somewhen, their fingers had become interlaced - and fell back to sleep, safe in the arms of a woman with the biggest heart Kara had ever encountered.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars x Supergirl, Christmas-style

There were always rumors, whispers. About soothsayers of old who saw into the future. The far future.

A planet called Earth, that fought wars over a day that called Christmas.

Each year, the factions that existed across the planet would go to war about who could deplete their resources the most to rain sacrificial gifts upon their loved ones. Each year, loneliness towered across the planet like a beacon of pain as some returned home, victorious and joyful, while others returned home to wage personal battles of their own, lonely and pained and utterly, utterly alone.

Yet each year, for Christmas, there were tales of hope. Tales of miracles and tales of love.

And the rebellion could certainly use hope, miracles, and love right about now.

So Maggie and Kara took what precious resources they could spare to Arkania to compensate the miners there as richly as they could for the most beautifully hewn gems for the rebellion, they smiled at each other across the small cockpit of the Falcon, Maggie flying while Kara put out any fires the old rust bucket inevitably kicked up.

When they got back to base, Lieutenants Schott and Allen immediately set to work. 

By nightfall, the gems were all carved with a symbol of hope. A symbol of rebellion. A symbol that they would all, no matter what the First Order did to them as individuals, remain a team. A united front.

A family.

They stepped back to watch their friends - family - present the gems to each other, fashioned into pendants, rings, tokens. Anything and everything that the rebels could keep on their person, close to their bodies, their hearts, in case the worst happened.

To remind them that if they didn’t lose hope, lose faith in each other, the best could happen.

Just like the legends of Christmas said was possible.

And then Maggie and Kara waited. They waited for hours and hours, it seemed, until Alex and Lena emerged from the forest, sweat-covered and dirt-stained, lightsabers in their belts and exhaustion on their faces.

But they were both smiling, if grimly. Perhaps their training session had, this time, gone well. Or at least not failed disastrously.

Which was good. Very good. Because the last Jedi really did feel like the last hope of the rebellion. Kara and Maggie had both made a ring and a pendant, one for each of the women.

Kara, for her sister and her girlfriend. Maggie, for her girlfriend and one-day-sister-in-law.

“It means hope,” Kara told Alex.

“It means that there are stronger things than blood,” Maggie told Lena.

Their hugs were long and they were tearful, but their were traces of joy in them both.

And then Kara stood before Lena, Maggie before Alex.

Kara dipped her head to kiss Lena’s collarbone, where a patch of clean skin suggested that Alex had needed to heal some terrible wound for her.

Maggie took Alex’s hand and kissed her Jedi girlfriend’s knuckles, one by one, where it seemed her lightsaber - or her temper - had failed her, and she’d resorted to using her fists.

Kara slipped a ring onto Lena’s finger, emblazened with the symbol of the rebellion. 

With the symbol that - if the soothsayers were right - there was, indeed, a future to look forward to.

That they wouldn’t, in fact, all be destroyed.

Maggie did the same for Alex, as the Jedi watched with trembling bodies and eyes stinging with tears.

“I would tell you that no one’s relying on you, but you know that’s not true,” Kara told her, kissing her lips in a way she wouldn’t have been able to before the war. 

But the Jedi were gone - all that was left stood before she and Maggie - and there could be new rules, now.

And that was hope in itself.

“You must have gone so far out of your way to do this,” Lena shook her head, even as she leaned into Kara’s kiss like her life depended on it. And maybe it did.

“Christmas,” Kara whispered, and the soothsayer’s stories twisted Lena’s lips up into a smile.

“A time of war and family. How appropriate.”

“A time of hope,” Kara kissed her nose softly, and Lena giggled. It was a miracle in itself, hearing a Jedi giggle.

“You didn’t have to do this for us,” Alex told Maggie, even as she kissed Maggie on the cheek, on the forehead, on the mouth. 

“We did it for all of us,” Maggie gestured behind her, where friends and families and lovers and allies alike were all marveling over their new tokens, laughing and examining and smiling, for once, because here was another thing to remind them that they had each other.

“You know,” Alex whispered into Maggie’s embrace, “everyone thinks hope rests on us, on Lena and me. But really, it’s on things like this. Leaders like you two.”

“It’s on all of us,” Kara said, talking to Alex softly even as she rested her forehead against Lena’s.

“We won’t give it up, then,” Maggie agreed as she and Alex, too, let their worries and griefs rest with each other, sharing all they had to carry.

“No,” Kara smiled, reaching for Alex and Lena’s hands as she turned. Alex took Maggie’s, too, and they all watched a scene that maybe was what the soothsayers had in mind when they talked about Christmas.

Joy, and laughter, and hope, in the midst of war.

Family.

And that was how they were going to win.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena’s First Christmas Tree

“She’s never had a Christmas tree?” Maggie asked, and Kara was gratified to hear that it was rage, not pity, in Maggie’s voice.

Not pity, because she knew how much Maggie tended to hate corporate holidays, but how hard she’d gone recently for family. Because she finally had one.

Rage, because she knew how lonely holidays could be, and how isolated blood family and life had made Lena to ensure that she’d always been alone when she could be surrounded by people who loved her.

“Never,” Kara confirmed.

“Hell, we’ve had Christmas trees and we’re flipping Jewish,” Alex said. “You know what we have to do, Kara.”

“I do,” Kara grinned, and they leaned their heads together to conspire.

She took Lena out ice skating - of course Lena could skate flawlessly, and of course the woman who could fly at supersonic speeds would fall all over herself constantly if Lena didn’t have her by the hands, skating backwards to guide Kara forwards.

And by the time they got home, to Lena’s beautiful and lonely penthouse - except for the nights Kara spent there, and except for the nights the team rolled through for beer and games and long movie marathons - it was sparkling with tasteful white Christmas lights and a tree, complete with tinsel and ornaments and impeccably wrapped gifts, collected from Lena’s new family. 

Complete with a homemade toy train, on tracks looped around the apartment, with real steam pumping out of the tender and a real, soft train whistle occasionally sounding when the metallic treasure rounded through intricate stations scattered along the tracks throughout the apartment.

“Oh darling,” Lena whispered, because Maggie and Alex had slipped out, back home to their own holiday retreat, before Kara took her girlfriend home.

“Is it okay?” Kara asked, adjusting her glasses and watching Lena nervously.

“Okay?” Lena breathed, turning to Kara and taking both her hands into her own. She kissed knuckle after knuckle, never breaking eye contact with Kara, who bit her lip as her breath hitched.

“Let me show you just how okay,” Lena rasped, because no one had ever cared this much, had ever thought of her this much. But her family did.

And her family had started with Kara.

So they made their way across train tracks and Christmas gifts Lena had never had, so they could give each other Christmas gifts on their bed that neither of them had ever even dreamed of.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mostly-hope asked:
> 
> Holiday prompt: Sanvers 1st Christmas but Alex and her anxiety about perfectionism (and some rough responses to gifts from Eliza) makes her stress about her gift for Maggie like crazy, and Maggie reassures her. (She's actually a relatively good gift giver lol) Again for sure not related to my life

Alex groaned loudly as Kara rubbed her back. “You’re amazing at this, Alex,” she promised, but Alex just groaned louder and shook her head.

“You are! Remember when you and Clark wrote me that ‘guide to North American Earth cultural norms’ book when I was a teenager?”

“Yeah, and Mom said it was sloppily done and condescending. Not until after Clark went home, of course.”

“I loved it,” Kara insisted, because she still kept it in her room, and Alex knew that. Or, she usually knew it, but her anxiety tonight was preventing her from knowing much of anything except that she was a terrible person who could never get anything right.

“Yeah, but then the next year I got you that whole collection of NASA’s latest research reports on the stars, and you cried because you were happy but Eliza thought I made you cry because you were sad – you weren’t there when she chewed me out for it later.”

Kara adjusted her glasses and ground her teeth slightly. “I didn’t know, Alex. I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would have told Eliza –“

“She never heard you when you tried to defend me, Kara, she always twisted it into something else. And –“ Alex held up her hands, “I know she loves me, I do, and I know she’s been working on it and maybe even getting a little better, but it doesn’t… what if Maggie hates what I get her, Kara? What if I’m just as bad at giving gifts as Mom always said, and I get Maggie something that she hates, and she’ll think it means I don’t pay enough attention to her, or I don’t love her well enough, or that I’m not –“

“Whoa, hey,” Kara took Alex’s hands into her own. “Look at me. Alex. Look at me, please.”

Because Alex was starting to sweat and talk entirely too fast and with entirely too little pauses for breath.

“Can you do me a favor, please?” Kara asked, putting her hand just above Alex’s chest as Alex nodded. “Can you breathe into my hand?”

“Kara,” Alex protested, because sometimes the momentum of it all was too much to want to stop, to have the willpower to stop. Sometimes, it was easier to give in and…

“You can do it, Alex,” Kara reminded her, and she gave into her sister’s faith in her.

So she breathed out into Kara’s hand, and let Kara help her bring her chest back down. “Into your belly, too,” Kara reminded her, just like Alex had taught her for her own panics.

Alex nodded, trying, trying, always having to try so damn hard.

But it worked – eventually – and when she’d settled enough and let her muscles melt so she could just relax onto Kara’s shoulder, she felt safer asking the question.

“Do you think Maggie will like it, then? What I got her?”

She heard Kara’s smile even though she couldn’t, from this angle, see her face.

“She’s going to love it.”

But Alex was still nervous, still panicky, still up most of Christmas Even night, tossing and turning over whether Maggie would like it. She’d spent time on it – so, so much time – but still. It might not be enough. It might be the wrong thing. It might –

She tried to slow her mind down, her breathing. She succeeded in the second, but the first kept her up until Maggie blinked her eyes open.

“Danvers?” she murmured, fumbling to touch Alex’s cheek with sleepy hands. “You’re all anxious,” she tried to sit up.

Which, of course, made Alex even more scared. Because she’d been so freaked out about making Maggie happy that now she’d woken Maggie up and and and and –

“I love you, Danvers,” Maggie said, like she knew exactly what Alex needed to hear, like she knew exactly how to touch Alex’s chin with her index finger and tilt her face up to look into Maggie’s eyes. “Everything’s okay. You’re okay. I promise. Do you wanna tell me about it?”

Alex sighed, deep and trembling, feeling more and more stupid the more she thought about it, the more Maggie looked at her like she was everything.

“It’s stupid,” she said, and this time Maggie sat up fully.

“It’s not stupid, Alex. It’s never stupid. Your feelings are never stupid.”

“This one is.”

“Try me,” Maggie tilted her head, and Alex’s lips quirked into a ghost of a smile, appreciating that Maggie knew the trick of turning something into a challenge that Alex wouldn’t back down from.

“What if you don’t like the present I got you and then you hate me and want to break up with me or maybe you won’t hate me and want to break up but you’ll like secretly resent me because I didn’t get you the right thing and then it’ll build and build and then later it’ll all come spilling out that I’m not thoughtful enough and I don’t take good enough care of you and I’m not a good enough girlfriend but you were too nice to say anything.”

Alex finally stopped, finally took a breath, her cheeks red but her eyes clear and wide. Maggie took both of her hands into her own and started kissing each knuckle, a small smile on her lips. But she wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t making fun of her. She wasn’t rolling her eyes and dismissing her.

She was… comforting her. And Alex knew that Maggie was like that. And Kara, too, she was used to Kara comforting her.

But still, somehow, it felt new. She still, somehow, felt uncomfortable. But also comfortable. Cared for, but scared that it would be taken away if she did the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, breathed the wrong way.

Apparently, though, there was no wrong way. “If I ever resented you for anything, Alex, I would tell you right away,” Maggie started, knowing Alex needed the logical response to go with the affection, the logistics to go with the soothing comfort of Maggie’s lips pressing against each of her knuckles, which had all seen too much pain.

“And I really don’t think I would ever resent you for not getting me exactly the right thing. And I don’t even think there is a right thing, Danvers. If I wanted something that specific for Christmas, I promise I’d ask you for it. Okay? I’m not going to play games. Alright? I don’t expect you to read my mind. But I didn’t ask you for anything because I don’t need anything, or even want anything. Just you.”

“Okay,” Alex nodded, her breath still shaky but her eyes starting to calm. “But still. What if you don’t like it?”

Maggie kissed her nose, then her lips. “I will like anything you get me, Alex. Because you thought of it, and you thought of me when you got it, and that’s all I need. And anyway, you’re my gift. You’re all I need or want.”

“Okay, but gifts are nice too.”

Maggie tilted her head and her eyes crinkled in a smile. “They are. You’re gonna be up all night worrying about this, aren’t you?”

Alex pffted. “No.”

“You are.” Maggie kicked back the blankets and tugged on Alex’s hand. “Come on. It’s past midnight.”

“Where are we going?”

“To unwrap gifts,” Maggie pulled Alex into a kiss, walking her backwards out of the bedroom.

“But –“

“Merry Christmas, Danvers,” Maggie grinned as she knelt by the tree, tossing Alex’s stocking at her.

But Alex put it down, kneeling next to her. “You really don’t mind opening it like this? Now?”

“It’s Christmas, Danvers. I want to see you smile.”

“But if you hate it, I won’t be –“

Like a bandaid, Maggie ripped the wrapping off the odd-shaped package.

Her eyes glistened as she realized what it was.

A plastic flash grenade, with a seam on one side. “It opens?” Maggie marveled.

“It won’t explode, Sawyer, don’t get too excited,” Alex joked, even as her heart hammered, studied Maggie’s every reaction. But, try as she might, she couldn’t find anything but glee in Maggie’s eyes, her body language.

Maggie cracked the fake flash grenade shell, and a series of photos and movie tickets and parking passes floated out all around her lap.

“Danvers,” she whispered, picking up the photos and memories one by one. “This is all of us,” her voice broke slightly as she sifted through a ticket from their first movie together, the paper bracelet from the club where they went dancing for the first time, a crime scene still that James took of Alex and Maggie working a case together.

“Do you like it?” Alex asked, trying and failing to keep the trembling out of her voice.

“It’s perfect,” Maggie promised, and Alex bit the inside of her cheek.

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s absolutely perfect. Just like you.”

Alex squirmed happily with the praise, and shivered happily when Maggie kissed her soundly.

“Let me show you just how perfect. Yeah?” Maggie asked.

Alex could do nothing but nod, and kiss, and sigh, and nod some more, as Maggie led her back to their bed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chaos-otter asked:
> 
> Hey I'm at work so I can't participate as much as I'd like but I love and miss you cap. And if you wanted to write Alex's first Christmas without maggie (bonus points if it nb!Alex, totally not cus I'm dealing with that right now what do you mean?) and have all the superfriends help make them feel loved I'd really appreciate it.

They’d known it was going to hurt. But they weren’t prepared for quite how much.

Everything always reminded them of Maggie. Everything about their job, about investigating and making tough calls and saving the world and making progress in the lab, every little thing that irritated them throughout the day that they’d normally text Maggie about, every little thing that would normally make them smile but now just ripped their heart into even smaller pieces because they couldn’t share those things with her.

Everything always reminded them of Maggie, and they’d known it would get worse with the holidays, but if they’d known how much worse, they might cooked up some kind of cryo-freeze situation so they could just sleep the entire damn season through.

Because James took everyone ice skating and it was nice holding Kara’s hand and it was nice watching Lena giggle and it was hilarious watching Winn fall, but everything felt distant, like they weren’t quite in their own body, like they were watching from above because in their mind, everything was nice in theory, but really they should be doing all of it with Maggie. Really, they should be there together.

Even when they managed to smile, posing for selfies with their friends, it felt fake, false, unreal. Heartbreaking. Like everything was a performance, because really, everything was.

They did everything they were supposed to do.

They went Christmas shopping and they wrote Christmas cards and they even wore the Santa hat Kara had made them wear every year since they were kids.

They laughed when everyone else did during all the Christmas films, but they were all about romance, so really, Alex just wanted to scream.

And hole up in their bed and sob and sob and sob and sob.

Because their bed was too empty, even when Kara fell asleep with them because she knew they were hurting.

Their bed was too empty and their heart had nothing left to give except to perform, perform, perform.

Everyone else deserved a nice Christmas, even if there was absolutely no hope that Alex would have one, too.

Without her.

It took them a while to notice, what their friends were doing for them.

The way James took their hand at the ice skating rink and squeezed extra tight when couples passed by and Alex’s entire body twitched.

The way Lena snuggled up on their shoulder during the most disgustingly romantic bits of the holiday films they watched together, and the way Winn stayed at their apartment extra late most nights during the season, challenging them to video game after video game to keep their mind off the celebrations and the lights and the forced frivolity.

The way Kara flew into their window every morning to check in on them, with coffee and donuts, never the kind that were decorated with green and red and blue and silver, never the kind that were bedazzled with holidays.

And on the afternoon they were dreading most – Christmas damn Eve – everyone piled into their apartment.

They were expecting endless Christmas cheer and to have to pretend their way through yet another night of comfort and joy when they felt neither.

Instead, Winn brought horror movies and James brought Scrabble Deluxe and Kara brought endless pizza and potstickers and Lena brought all kinds of wine.

“You’re not by yourself, Alex,” Kara whispered as she snuggled up to their sibling, knowing they were crying quietly, taking advantage of all the lights being off, taking advantage of the moment of pause, of everyone knowing that Alex felt responsible for celebrating when all they wanted to do was mourn.

“You don’t have to smile for us, Danvers,” Winn promised as Alex’s sobs finally broke through their chest, letting it out in front of people for the first time just as Christmas morning dawned.

Kara gathered them into her arms as Lena knelt in front of them and rested her head in their lap. James’s hands ran over the buzzed side of their hair just like he knew they liked, and Winn let them squeeze his hand as hard as they needed to.

“Merry Christmas, guys,” Alex choked, relief starting to mix with their tears because crying was so much better than trying to hold it in. Letting their friends be there for them was so much scarier – but so much better – than trying to fake it for them.

It wasn’t going to be a merry Christmas, not this year. But maybe, just maybe, there would be joy again, one day.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cassiebones asked:
> 
> Kara and Lena bickering over the mechanics of Santa's sleigh and it getting so much on Alex's nerves that she finally says "HE'S NOT REAL!" and Kara's lip starts quivering because "what do you mean Santa's not real?!?" And Alex starting to panic and backtrack and Kara turns to start crying in Lena's shoulder while Lena glares at Alex, but then Kara whispers "is she buying it?" And that's when Lena considers that her gf is a little Slytherin in disguise
> 
> queercapwriting answered:
> 
> Cassie is this a prompt or a shitpost.
> 
> cassiebones:
> 
> both.

“It’s obviously alien,” Kara said in a tone that broadcasted to everyone at the bar that she and her girlfriend had clearly been discussing this for quite a while. She adjusted her glasses like it proved her point, but Lena just sat up straighter, tilting her glass of red wine at Kara.

Alex groaned into Maggie’s shoulder while Maggie pulled at her beer silently, watching Kara and Lena like the most interesting tennis match she’d ever seen.

“Oh, I see what you’re saying,” Lena narrowed her eyes at Kara, “so because it’s an incredible technological feat, it has to be alien, because no one on Earth could ever reach that level of genius?”

Kara adjusted her glasses again, scoffing loudly. “Obviously you and Alex could engineer a way to harness quantum entanglement so Santa’s sleigh can make it across the planet in one night, even accounting for the amount of time he has to spend in each child’s house, I’m not saying it’s beyond–“

“Then what are you saying, dear?”

“How did this even get started?” Alex groaned. Maggie patted her head with vague sympathy.

“It’ll be okay, Danvers, let them have their fun.”

“Fun? They’re gonna break up over something that’s not even –“

“Shhh.”

“I’m saying,” Kara continued, “that it’s not even so much about the sleigh mechanics as it is the reindeer. Have you ever seen Earth reindeer fly? And at the speeds needed to accomplish what Santa does every Christmas Eve? Including the folds in spacetime he’d need to create to –“

“There are meta-humans, Kara, who’s to say there aren’t meta-reindeer?” Lena asked passionately.

“Oh my god,” Alex finally emerged from Maggie’s shoulder. Kara and Lena startled their debate to a halt.

“Don’t do it, Danvers,” Maggie muttered, but Alex’s nerves were already frayed thin.

“He’s not real!” Alex exploded, and she didn’t need superhearing to hear a pin drop across the entire bar.

Maggie buried her face in her hands as Alex’s chest heaved, clearly with the relief of finally saying what needed to be said.

But then Kara’s lips were quivering, and her eyes were crystallizing with unshed tears.

“Look what you’ve done,” Lena hissed.

“Now you’ve stepped in it,” Maggie murmured.

“What do you mean Santa’s not real?” Kara’s voice quivered like it only did when her heart had truly shattered.

Alex’s eyes widened and her pulse started racing in quite a different way than it had been when clear scientific inaccuracies surrounded her.

“Oh, no,” Alex whispered, reaching out for her little sister’s hand. But Kara just pulled away, hiding her face in Lena’s shoulder to cry.

“Is she buying it?” Kara murmured as she continued to wrack her body with sobs.

Lena kissed Kara’s hair consolingly, right by her ear. “Perfectly,” she muttered.

“No, Kara, see, what I meant,” Alex spluttered. Kara continued to sniffle into Lena’s shoulder as Maggie and Lena just stared at Alex, stern and disappointed, clearly awaiting her explanation. “What I meant was, Santa’s not um, he’s not corporeal, you see. So all the debates about the mechanics of his sleigh, your premises were wrong, because if he’s not corporeal, it changes the physics of the – wait. Wait. Are you… are you laughing?”

Because Kara I-flew-here-on-a-bus Danvers could only keep up the charade for so long, and she was wiping tears away from her cheeks but her smile was bright, her eyes squeezed shut with how hard she was, indeed, laughing.

“Wait, hold on, you –“

“You bought it, Danvers,” Maggie choked.

“You were in on it?” Alex rounded on her girlfriend, who held up her hands and laughed.

“Sure wasn’t. But I’m a detective, Danvers –“

“I swear on everything holy, if you say you detect –“

“I was gonna say I figure things out,” Maggie laughed, high-fiving Lena.

“And you,” Alex turned her attention to Kara, who was nearly sideways on her bar stool.

“I love you so much, Alex,” she gasped through her laughter, which was when Alex paused, and really looked.

Maggie and Lena were holding each other’s hands, keeping each other somewhat upright as they laughed harder than Alex had seen either of them laugh in so long.

And Kara? Kara’s glasses were fogged and she was holding Lena’s other hand for balance, reaching out for Alex, happier than Alex had seen her in… she didn’t even know when.

“I love you too,” Alex started to smile, and Kara threw a napkin at her.

“He’s not corporeal,” she choked, and this time, Alex’s smile was broad as her family’s laughter infected her, too.

“Listen,” she threw the napkin right back at Kara, “it was the best I could do with you sobbing that Santa’s not real –“

A glass shattered behind the four of them, and Alex spun around to find Brainy standing there, slaw-jawed and wide-eyed, his hand extended like he was still holding the beer he’d dropped.

“Santa isn’t real?” he asked as Nia groaned.

“You’re kidding me,” Alex said. “He’s kidding, right?” she asked Nia, who was consoling Brainy with a grimace.

“Am I performing the joke properly?” he whispered into her ear.

“You’re perfect,” Nia murmured, trying to hold back her smile before the inevitable second-round of laughter began.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> Going off of Cassie! Lena asks kara how they want to get ‘Santa’ situated for their daughter and Lena is like what do you mean we have to do it and Kara is distraught so Lena has to call alex and be like ‘wtf why doesn’t she know’ and Alex is like ‘yeah sorry I’ve been laying out gifts for her since she got here and I never told her. Sorry. But you know good luck with that’
> 
> @cassiebones look what you’ve done (the chapter this mischievous and wonderful anon is referring to is right before this one, day 11).

It was one of the first Earth myths Kara had learned – she couldn’t avoid it, especially as she tried to throw herself into Earth cultures, a twelve-year-old who’d just lost her entire planet, trying desperately to fit in when it seemed utterly hopeless.

Santa was one of the first things that reminded Kara of home. Someone who could fly, seemingly like magic, faster than light for sure, definitely bending spacetime.

Things that only she and Kal-El - not, Clark, Clark, it was Clark now, wasn’t it? - could do.

So Santa felt like a piece of home, somehow.

Kara didn’t realize - especially because Alex spent so much of the time being irritated by her, hurt by her, embarrassed by her - how closely Alex paid attention to her.

She didn’t notice the way Alex watched her absorb everything to do with Santa Claus with zeal, the way she seemed more settled in her body when she was reading about his mythologies and watching films with children loving the old man, because maybe people would love her on this planet too, one day.

So Alex knew that she couldn’t let Kara find out that Santa wasn’t real. She knew she couldn’t let Kara find out just how alone she was on this planet.

So every year, she waited until her little sister had floated herself to sleep, and every year, she drank the milk and ate the cookies, sure to leave just the right amount of crumbs. Every year, she spent the allowance she saved all year, the money she got from teaching little kids to surf, on whatever Kara wanted, whatever she wrote in the letters to the North Pole - so much like the Fortress of Solitude - that Alex carefully intercepted each year.

It got more complicated, when they both went off to college.

But no matter where she was, and no matter where Kara was, she made sure she always had a key to Kara’s apartment, her dorm room. She made sure she was never doing anything on Christmas Eve except waiting for her sister to sleep so she could safely smuggle in gifts from Santa.

So when Kara asked Lena, all enthusiastic earnesty, how she thought it was best to arrange their living room so that Santa could bring gifts for their daughter, Lena balked. But then she studied Kara’s face, and her body, and her eyes - mostly, it was in her eyes - and she knew Kara meant it.

She got on the phone with Alex the first chance she got.

“You need to explain to me how your sister doesn’t know about Santa Claus,” she said without greeting, and she could practically hear Alex’s panic.

“Oh shit, I didn’t - oh shit. I um. I’ve been leaving presents for her since we were kids, since she got here. She identifies with him, you know? Superhuman powers and all that. Shit. I didn’t - oh shit, Lena. What do we do?”

They figured it out like they figured most things out - together.

Alex sat her sister down, Lena next to Kara for support, looked her in the eyes, and told her without hesitation or excuse what she’d been doing for over fifteen years.

She expected it to break Kara down. After all she’d been through. All she’d lost. She expected to have to comfort her, to have to reassure her, to have to remind her all the ways that she wasn’t alone.

Especially when Kara’s eyes flooded with tears.

Alex braced herself, and Lena squeezed Kara’s knee in support. 

But Kara only had eyes for her sister.

“You did all that for me,” her voice cracked. “So I wouldn’t feel as alone.”

“Yes,” Alex’s voice was small, ashamed, because she still didn’t understand the way Kara was experiencing the truth.

“Even that year you were studying at Oxford over Christmas.”

“I flew back, just for the night,” she admitted, and Lena’s eyes flooded with tears now, too.

Apologies and excuses threatened to spill over her lips, but Alex had told herself she would own this, and so she would. She would.

But instead of anger, or even sadness, Kara’s arms were suddenly wrapped around Alex, along with Lena’s.

“What… you’re not mad?”

“Alex,” Kara sobbed, pulling back just enough to wipe her nose on her sleeve and kiss Alex’s cheek. “You love me so much that you… for years and years and years with no thanks, Alex… You’re amazing, do you know that? You’re amazing.”

“So… you’re not mad. That’s what I’m getting.”

“I’m not mad, Alex. I’m grateful. I love you so much,” Kara whispered before tears overtook her again, and she squeezed Alex to her again.

Bewildered, Alex hugged her sister back. Lena took her hand, tight around Kara’s back, and squeezed.

Because apparently, she’d been loving her sister well the whole time.

Which was exactly what she was trying to be. Exactly what Christmas was supposed to be. Exactly what Kara was supposed to feel.

Like she was loved. And like she belonged.

And now, apparently, she did.

“I love you too, sis,” Alex whispered as it started, for once, to snow outside. And she meant it more than she’d ever meant anything.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt me in the comments or on the tumbles. whatever y'all need to read this holigay season (note that the Chanukah series is forthcoming, starting on the first night!)


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